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“I remember the first game against Cameroon. I can honestly say seldom have I ever felt as lonely as I did that day. Walking out onto the pitch and our fans are behind the goal.

“I wasn’t quite sure [how they felt]. It was mixed messages coming through to me about whether I did right or whether I did wrong. I had my own views and I still have and I though, I’m not going over there [to get cheered or abused]. I’m not prepared for either. I left the lads to go over there. I sat in the dugout let them all get on with it.

“I didn’t think it was appropriate at the time because then it would become about me and I didn’t want want that.”

Reflecting on that game against Cameroon, he added: “We were 1-0 down and then Matty Holland equalises. We played well in that game against Cameroon. Against a really good Cameroon side as well.

Mick McCarthy and Roy Keane pass each other during training (Image: INPHO)

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“You could see then, afterwards, it was about the football. It was about how we were going to play and it didn’t matter who the personalities were, it was the team and it was about the winning and that’s what I wanted it to be and that’s how it turned out.

“Although there was always that in the background, believe me.”

McCarthy's comments come after RTE's Tommie Gorman revealed he would take a slightly different tactic if given another chance at interviewing Keane after he returned home from Saipan in 2002.

"The overriding reaction to it is what a missed opportunity it was," he told RTE's Sunday Sport.

"When I listen back to it now, with the benefit of hindsight, you can see what is exactly bothering Keane.

"It was his last big opportunity to do something in a World Cup. He was 30, coming on 31, he saw the potential of guys like Robbie Keane, Damien Duff, and he contrasted that with the preparations [in the camp].

"All his professional life Keane was finely tuned, highly-motivated, short-fused - that's what made him the player he was. The whole thing just blew up."